For example, UNAS, if I'm thinking of the right person, (if not, sorry) you did pretty well on the LSATs (mid 160s or so?), but had a sub 3.0 GPA because you partied a lot in college, and you were talking about your chances for T14 or T25 schools - this just strikes me as so wrong, that you have a legitimate chance at these schools, just because you get to check a box, whereas a white person with your stats would not even dream of these schools. I don't have any jealousy toward you, nor anger, and I don't think I was rejected from any schools because of AA, but the principle that a slacker can accomplish the same thing by checking a box that someone else achieved by 4 years of hard work, just seems really wrong. It just seems to me to undermine the whole academic process.

What bothers me is that you don't get why this paragraph is irrelevant

Enlighten me please.

Assuming the story you told about UNAS is true, choose the option that best describes you

A. I think UNAS's story is representative of most AA recipients (I'm a bigot and my post should be ignored)OrB. I do not think UNAS's story is representative of most AA recipients (my post should just be ignored)

I don't think his story is representative of most AA recipients, so I guess I'll go with option B. But I think it's common enough that it's worth mentioning.

You believe it's common for AA recipents to have slacked off in college? On what do you base this belief? Research? Ethnographic study?

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But I completely agree with what you're saying, that AA should be judged based on aggregate effects, rather than individual. My logic wasn't UNAS's story exists, therefore AA is bad. I'm just saying, this is one example of the many problems with AA, which may or may not outweigh the benefits. Like I said earlier, I'm still unsure how I feel about AA. I see the benefits, but also the drawbacks.

I can agree with you here for the most part. I don't think the system is as vulnerable to exploitation as you seem to believe, though.

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As a side note, I think part of the problem with AA debates on this board is people like you being so quick to be hostile and to throw around words like "bigot" and "racist." I mean the way you use it in option A is that someone who is misinformed about AA statistics is a "bigot." All I said was that UNAS's story seems wrong to me, and is therefore worth mentioning as a problem associated with AA. I'm not sure what's so wrong with this that it warrants hostility on your part. That said, I appreciate your views on AA.

If it makes you feel better, that was the first time I've used that word here, precisely because I think terms like that are overused. No, I don't think someone who is misinformed is a bigot. I think someone who makes misinformed opinions about an entire group of people is a bigot. You admittedly didn't do that, so the term doesn't apply to you.

My response is somewhat "too simple." My family was not here during slavery. My family came in the 1930s as poor Sicilian immigrants who had nothing and wanted just a small bit of something. They never stepped on anyone or prevented anyone from doing anything because they had nothing - they were the downtrodden.

Why should I, then, have to bare the burden of rectifying some large scale racism of which I - and my family - was never a part? Why must I constantly hear only that one justification to AA: that it rectifies past discrimination? Even people who think AA is a great thing need to realize that not all of our families were here to hurt yours at that time. Mine was making wine in Sicily - they didn't have slaves, they didn;t even have a house as one would recognize one.

I realize there was a systematic demoralization and abuse of certain people in early America. I realize it was NOT fair. But show me one person who descends from a slave family and I will support his admission over he who was from a slaveholding family. Aside from that, I find it hard to swallow a pill that makes me - whose family was not here until 1934 (and whose family faced "Italians Need Not Apply" signs when they got here) - "responsible" for enslaving people in eighteenth and nineteenth century Georgia.

Affirmative Action also promotes women and other minorites as well...you do realize that black people aren't the only ones?

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It is easy to change the language of oppression without changing the sociopolitical situation of its victims.

I realize there was a systematic demoralization and abuse of certain people in early America. I realize it was NOT fair. But show me one person who descends from a slave family and I will support his admission over he who was from a slaveholding family. Aside from that, I find it hard to swallow a pill that makes me - whose family was not here until 1934 (and whose family faced "Italians Need Not Apply" signs when they got here) - "responsible" for enslaving people in eighteenth and nineteenth century Georgia.

You can't be serious. But if you are, can you tell me which of the following beliefs is driving your thought process?1)most of the 30+ million black people in America are immigrants of recent vintage or 2)some black people came on a party cruise in the 1800s and liked the place so much that they decided to stay.

What I was trying to illustrate with my point is that many people choose to justify AA by citing a long history of racism in the US going back to slavery. THAT is a justification with which I cannot live.

Now, the point that Leo makes is a valid one and one to which I want to respond. I do not think MY personal chances of admission at any given program would be changed if AA was abandoned, and it is not for that reason that I want it disolved. I simply think that, on a whole, if we are to REALLY ever become a society that is free from all forms of racial prejudice, AA needs to go away. It is - for better or worse - one more system that classifies people based on something they CANNOT help: who they were born.Also, AA is less an issue with admission to larger programs, such as Law or Med schools, than with small programs (PhD, for example). If dept X at school Y only has 4 open PhD slots for a given year and they utilize AA, there is a greater chance that the overall effect on the applicants will be greater. I have experienced this firsthand in my own graduate fellowship applications. It is not that these students are not deserving, nor is it that I am blind to the greater societal concerns.

Will I EVER understand what it is to be a URM in the US? No. And that is my point. Responses such as Leo's serve to foster actual debate without frivolity while those of TinaTina seem flippant in the context of this important issue.

I just feel - with all my sincerity and heart and mind - that if we are EVER to be free from prejudice we need to eliminate ALL vehicles for that prejudice. AA is a policy of racial prejudice, and it is one of the few institutions that actively fosters a distinction by race. For us to all be equal, we need to ALL be equal. And it may be idealistic, but I think that things such as AA hurt this end more than help it.

That's the problem though. It is always minorities who have to make the sacrifice.Look, the forefathers should've thought about that before they decided to make it an issue. Whether or not you or your family had any part of supporting slavery/Jim Crow/racism is irrelevant. If you are white, you are benefitting from that system today. Even if you had no part in it, you do get some of the benefits.

One way to eliminate prejudice is not to just abolish an important vehicle for allowing minorities to get the same opportunities as whites. The way I look at it is not that abolishing affirmative action will help eliminate prejudice, but will simply re-distribute even more scarce resources to the majority at the expense of the minority under an inherently arbitrary definition of "merit." You might look at abstract concepts of equality and use them to justify your opinion, but the promise of America is equality of opportunity and unfortunately, pretty serious human rights violations have left minorities in a position where they cannot reasonably compete (as a whole) without initiatives that recognize the impact of those violations. And it has nothing to do with "merit" or an inherent inability to do the work.

Look at it this way, affirmative action is not reparations. You keep whatever benefits you unfairly received as a result of the historic subjugation of minorities in this country. It's like free money, baby. It's yours. Affirmative action simply tries to provide some semblance of equality of opportunity to a few promising minorities each year at each school/job. If you're angry that these few spots are taken up by holistic considerations including race, then you're selfish. You can't have all the resoures. If you're mad that you can't compete with affirmative action in place, what makes you think you would've been able to compete if these minorities had started off on a level playing field?

My response is somewhat "too simple." My family was not here during slavery. My family came in the 1930s as poor Sicilian immigrants who had nothing and wanted just a small bit of something. They never stepped on anyone or prevented anyone from doing anything because they had nothing - they were the downtrodden.

Why should I, then, have to bare the burden of rectifying some large scale racism of which I - and my family - was never a part? Why must I constantly hear only that one justification to AA: that it rectifies past discrimination? Even people who think AA is a great thing need to realize that not all of our families were here to hurt yours at that time. Mine was making wine in Sicily - they didn't have slaves, they didn;t even have a house as one would recognize one.

I realize there was a systematic demoralization and abuse of certain people in early America. I realize it was NOT fair. But show me one person who descends from a slave family and I will support his admission over he who was from a slaveholding family. Aside from that, I find it hard to swallow a pill that makes me - whose family was not here until 1934 (and whose family faced "Italians Need Not Apply" signs when they got here) - "responsible" for enslaving people in eighteenth and nineteenth century Georgia.

Affirmative Action also promotes women and other minorites as well...you do realize that black people are the only ones?

Is that really so? I wasn't aware that, for example. women were allowed to declare themselves as URM's for purposes of, for example, law school admissions.

My response is somewhat "too simple." My family was not here during slavery. My family came in the 1930s as poor Sicilian immigrants who had nothing and wanted just a small bit of something. They never stepped on anyone or prevented anyone from doing anything because they had nothing - they were the downtrodden.

Why should I, then, have to bare the burden of rectifying some large scale racism of which I - and my family - was never a part? Why must I constantly hear only that one justification to AA: that it rectifies past discrimination? Even people who think AA is a great thing need to realize that not all of our families were here to hurt yours at that time. Mine was making wine in Sicily - they didn't have slaves, they didn;t even have a house as one would recognize one.

I realize there was a systematic demoralization and abuse of certain people in early America. I realize it was NOT fair. But show me one person who descends from a slave family and I will support his admission over he who was from a slaveholding family. Aside from that, I find it hard to swallow a pill that makes me - whose family was not here until 1934 (and whose family faced "Italians Need Not Apply" signs when they got here) - "responsible" for enslaving people in eighteenth and nineteenth century Georgia.

Affirmative Action also promotes women and other minorites as well...you do realize that black people aren't the only ones?

What I meant to say.

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It is easy to change the language of oppression without changing the sociopolitical situation of its victims.

This is a serious question, so no scoffers, please. Although not a minority, I get an awesome tan. It has been pointed out to me that I could pass as Mexican pretty easily. I got a 168 on June's LSAT, but was thinking about retaking. Why though? AA is all about skin color, it isn't about the education you received, nor is it about where you grew up. As a person with great tanning ability shouldn't I be able to take unfair advantage too?

This is a serious question, so no scoffers, please. Although not a minority, I get an awesome tan. It has been pointed out to me that I could pass as Mexican pretty easily. I got a 168 on June's LSAT, but was thinking about retaking. Why though? AA is all about skin color, it isn't about the education you received, nor is it about where you grew up. As a person with great tanning ability shouldn't I be able to take unfair advantage too?

Yes, but I don't think there is a Law School for individuals with special needs.

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Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day. - Thomas Jefferson.